Today in History

Today is Saturday, Oct. 29, the 302nd day of 2011. There are 63 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Oct. 29, 1929, Wall Street crashed on "Black Tuesday," heralding the beginning of America's Great Depression.

On this date:

In 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier, military adventurer and poet, was executed in London.

In 1901, President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted.

In 1911, Hungarian-born American newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer, 64, died in Charleston, S.C.

In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed.

In 1940, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson drew the first number -- 158 -- in America's first peacetime military draft.

In 1956, during the Suez Canal crisis, Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premiered as NBC's nightly television newscast.

In 1960, a chartered plane carrying the California Polytechnic State University football team crashed on takeoff from Toledo, Ohio, killing 22 of the 48 people on board.

In 1966, the National Organization for Women was formally organized during a conference in Washington, D.C.

In 1979, on the 50th anniversary of the great stock market crash, anti-nuclear protesters tried but failed to shut down the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1998, Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, roared back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery, retracing the trail he'd blazed for America's astronauts 36 years earlier.

Ten years ago: The FBI issued a terrorism warning asking Americans and law enforcement to be on the highest alert for possible attacks in the United States and abroad. A gunman killed four people in the French city of Tours. (Suspect Jean-Pierre Roux-Durraffourt was later sentenced to life in prison.)

Five years ago: The board of trustees of Gallaudet University, the nation's premier school for the deaf, voted to revoke the appointment of incoming president Jane Fernandes, who'd been the subject of protests. A Nigerian Boeing 737 jetliner crashed just after takeoff from Abuja airport, killing 96 of the 105 people on board. Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, won re-election in a landslide.

One year ago: Authorities on three continents said they had thwarted multiple terrorist attacks aimed at the United States, seizing two explosive packages addressed to Chicago-area synagogues and packed aboard cargo jets from Yemen.

Today's Birthdays: Bluegrass singer-musician Sonny Osborne (The Osborne Brothers) is 74. Country singer Lee Clayton is 69. Rock musician Denny Laine is 67. Singer Melba Moore is 66. Musician Peter Green is 65. Actor Richard Dreyfuss is 64. Actress Kate Jackson is 63. The president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, is 61. Actor Dan Castellaneta ("The Simpsons") is 54. Country musician Steve Kellough (Wild Horses) is 54. Comic strip artist Tom Wilson ("Ziggy") is 54. Actress Finola Hughes is 52. Singer Randy Jackson is 50. Rock musician Peter Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) is 46. Actress Joely Fisher is 44. Rapper Paris is 44. Actor Rufus Sewell is 44. Actor Grayson McCouch (mih-KOOCH') is 43. Rock singer SA Martinez (311) is 42. Musician Toby Smith is 41. Actress Winona Ryder is 40. Actress Tracee Ellis Ross is 39. Actor Trevor Lissauer is 38. Actress Gabrielle Union is 38. Olympic gold medal bobsledder Vonetta Flowers is 38. Actress Milena Govich is 35. Actor Jon Abrahams is 34. Actor Brendan Fehr is 34. Actor Ben Foster is 31. Rock musician Chris Baio (Vampire Weekend) is 27. Actress India Eisley (TV: "The Secret Life of the American Teenager") is 18.

Thought for Today: "Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light."-- Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911).

Copyright 2011, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.